ABSTRACT
This chapter describes labor and leisure sort of. The thing about labor and leisure is that these seemingly separate activities today share the same socioeconomic DNA. As is plainly clear by now, cheaponomics speaks not just of a way of producing goods and organizing markets. Its reach extends throughout society, shaping how we think about and act toward the environment and others while underpinning many of our ideals about what "growth" and "prosperity" mean. Work and leisure, as currently practiced, are but expressions of these broader logics. The story of work, leisure, and consumption, as authored by cheaponomics, could be described as a tragic comedy as it blends aspects of both tragic and comic forms. There are solid sociological and economic reasons why we ought to divest some of our time from the energy-intensive, socially destructive professional economy and reinvest it in the more labor-intensive, social-capitalizing amateur economy.
